Consciousness
by cbssoapsgirl
Summary: The assassination attempt happened. Fitz wasn't shot but someone very close to him was.
1. Bang

"Let's not go," Mellie told Fitz. "We can change our minds and not go."

"Is it because Olivia's going to be there? She was cleared an hour ago," Fitz responded. Their limo ride to his birthday party had been quiet up until Mellie didn't want to go. "Buck up, you won. Olivia and I aren't together anymore."

He got out of the car and waved to the onlookers standing behind the fence. He took Mellie's hand and pretended to be in a happy marriage with her like he usually did.

Olivia stood just near the entrance when they pulled up. She walked a bit closer towards the car to get to Cyrus. She was about to change her mind and not go to the party. They weren't together, why would Fitz even want her there? All they did lately was fight or be completely silent to each other.

Liv's stomach was in knots. She wasn't sure why though. Something felt off. Fitz looked like the fake happy husband he always played but something was off. Olivia walked over and found Cyrus.

"I think I'm going to go," she told him. "I shouldn't be here."

"Liv, you came with Edison. He won't even know that you are here. Spend the night with me and James. You'll have fun with us," Cyrus said.

"I'm going home, Cy. I don't know why I decided to come in the first place. It's not the right thing for us. We aren't even speaking. I'll see you tomorrow for lunch though." Olivia headed towards the exit but she had to pass by Fitz. She gave a couple extra feet of distance between them as she walked by.

**BANG!**

One gun shot was fired. Instinctively, Olivia ran over to Fitz and pushed him out of the way towards the limo.

**BANG!**

She turned to see where Tom and Hal were and where Mellie was. Shoving Fitz to the ground.

**BANG!**

The third shot fired just as Fitz was being put in the limo and it was driving off. Olivia fell to the ground. Blood splattered near her head.

She looked back and saw two agents covering Mellie. Cyrus was running towards her followed by James and a couple of agents. Liv tried to get up but her body wouldn't let her. She could hear Cyrus yelling for an ambulance but wasn't able to say anything.

"OLIVIA! STAY WITH ME!" Cyrus yelled at her.

Olivia could feel the paramedics putting her on a stretcher but she couldn't will herself to open her eyes. She really only cared about one thing: that Fitz was alive.


	2. Blood

The hospital was a mess. People scattered everywhere, yelling, shouting, crying, bleeding. Doctors were surrounding the emergency room trying to attend to everyone. An intern came by to everyone rating the injuries a person had. Some patients were only being checked out for shock. Others for scraps after hitting the ground after hearing the gunshots. Some were even being treated for panic attacks.

Cyrus rode with Olivia to the hospital in the ambulance. The doctors scurried over to her when she arrived.

"Her vitals are bad," a doctor told the nurse.

"Of course they're bad, she's been shot!" Cyrus yelled.

The doctor looked over her head on the right side where she had been shot. No exit wound. "Get her to an OR stat, the bullet's still in. Call neuro and get him in there," the doctor ordered. They ran with the stretcher to the OR leaving a trail of her blood on the floor behind them. Cyrus ran to keep up with them until he wasn't allowed anymore.

He turned around going back to the emergency room to find Mellie. She had to be checked out to make sure both her and the baby were okay.

"Mellie, how are you? What's going on?" Cyrus rambled.

"Where's Fitz? Is he okay? Where did they take him? What the hell happened?" Mellie asked.

"Tom and Daniel took Fitz back to the White House. He's secure. He's fine, he's not injured at all. How are you and the baby?"

"I'm fine. The doctor said the baby is too. I'm just shook up. What the hell happened?"

"Not sure. Three shots fired. Olivia pushed Fitz out of the way. She's in surgery now. They won't tell me anything. They just rushed her off. Fitz is fine too, just shaken up. When you are cleared I'll take you back to the White House."

Mellie sat straight at his mention of Olivia. "She pushed him out of the way, she's in surgery? Why? Did she get shot?"

"Once in the shoulder and the other in the head. The doctor said that the bullet is still there. They are going to try to get it out. Fitz doesn't know that she's been shot. Tom and Daniel don't know so they can't tell him. I have to tell him."

Mellie crossed her arms. "I'm getting impatient waiting for the all clear from these doctors. Go get one."

Cyrus obliged and grabbed a nurse to find her doctor.

"I'm so sorry, Madam First Lady. Everything looks good for you. Here's your discharge papers just sign them and the secret service can take you home," her doctor said when he came over a few minutes later.

Mellie followed Cyrus and her agents to the car and went back to the White House.

Fitz was being held in lock down in the Oval. He started the pacing the second he arrived. Mellie hadn't been pushed into the limo with him. Physically, Fitz was unharmed. Mentally he was a wreck. Why would someone want to kill him? Who shoved him out of the way? Where's Mellie? Where's Olivia? So many questions he asked but no one had answers.

Tom opened the door and let Mellie, Cyrus, and her agents in.

"Thank God, are you alright?" Fitz asked as he hugged her. She nodded and hugged him back. "And the baby?"

"The baby is fine," she told him. "Are you alright?"

"Yes. Cyrus, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. It's Olivia. She's the one injured," Cyrus told him.

Immediately, Cyrus got his attention. "How injured?"

"She's been shot twice."


	3. Fault

"Tom, pull the limo around. Get whatever agents you need for me to get over to the hospital. Mellie, go get some rest in the Residence. Cyrus come with me," Fitz started ordering.

Tom knew this would happen but he couldn't let the President out of the White House. "Sir, you are on lock down, you can't leave."

Mellie turned back to Fitz. "I know you care about her. I do too. I hope that she is okay. Go to her when you can. Right now, there is someone out there who wants you dead. You can't leave here; it's not safe for you to leave. Don't do it for me. Do it for her. You know she would want you to be safe."

"How did she get shot? She was supposed to be in the building with everyone else. What was she doing outside?" Fitz asked as he paced.

"She was leaving the party," Cyrus told him.

Mellie sat down on the couch as Fitz poured her some water. "Why? She was there with Edison," Fitz questioned.

Cyrus leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets. "She didn't want to make you uncomfortable and have you looking at her."

"So it's my fault!" Fitz yelled. "You're saying it's my fault she got shot?" By now, Fitz was in Cyrus's face.

"If the boot fits, wear it," Cyrus answered.

"Boys! Stop it. We can't work like this. You two can't do this now," Mellie told them. "You can't fight like this now. Olivia needs both of you to get along. When Tom clears the lock down, Fitz, you can go see Olivia. Hell, I'll even go with you. But now, you two can't argue. We just need to pray that she will be alright. Cyrus, go back to the hospital and call with any updates please."

Fitz followed Mellie back to the Residence for the night. He knew he wouldn't sleep but he had to make sure that Mellie was going to be okay.

"Get some sleep, Mellie. I'm going to the living room for a bit," Fitz told her.

"I don't want to put bad thoughts in your head, Fitz. But Olivia could die. I don't mean that to be a bitch. It's just that she could. I hope that she doesn't but she could. I want you to know that I don't want her to. She does love you, still. Even after all the shit that the two of you have done to each other. She pushed you out of the way. I saw her do it. She wouldn't have done it if she didn't care about you."

He walked over and kissed her cheek before leaving. "Thanks, Mellie."


	4. Papers

The lock down was cleared the next morning. When it was safe for Fitz to leave, he had the driver pull the limo around and was off to the hospital. Secret service shut down the whole floor that Olivia was on so Fitz could safely be with her.

He went up to the fifth floor and was met with a doctor.

"Mr. President, I'm Dr. Shelep. It's nice to actually meet you. I'm glad you are safe," he shook Fitz's hand and stood in the way so he couldn't get past.

"Yes, thank you. Nice to meet you too. How is Olivia?" Fitz asked.

Dr. Shelep knew this wasn't going to go over well. He could see the determination on Fitz's face to see her. "I'm sorry Mr. President. We can only allow family in to see Ms. Pope."

"Can you tell me about her condition?"

"Only her family. We've been trying to locate any family she has all night. Do you know how I could reach them?"

"Her team will know. Tom, get an agent down to OPA and get her team here. One of them will know how to get in touch with her family."

Tom radioed for another agent to go get the gladiators while Fitz could only sit and wait for them to arrive. He wanted to push past the doctor and see Olivia. Knowing he couldn't, he sat in the waiting room for what felt like forever.

After half an hour, the elevator dinged, notifying people that the door was going to open.

"Where is she?" Abby yelled. Harrison pulled her back and reminded her that there were sick people who needed to rest. "What's he doing here?" Abby pointed to Fitz.

"Ms. Wheelan, I'm sorry about all of this. Do any of you know how to get in touch with Olivia's family? The doctor needs to speak with them."

Harrison, Abby, and Huck were all quiet for several minutes. "Olivia never mentioned anything about her family. We don't discuss family," Harrison said.

"Huck, you've known her the longest. Did she say anything about her parents, or siblings?" Fitz asked.

Huck stood behind Abby until everyone turned to look at him. "Olivia doesn't have any family. Her parents are gone and she's an only child. No aunts, uncles, anything. We are her family."

Dr. Shelep heard what Huck said and had to interject. "I know that means everything to the three of you but in this matter, there's nothing I can do. Do you know if she has any kind of legal document to say who would be in charge if something were to happen to her? Something like this?"

No one was sure of what Olivia would do with documents like that. She never discussed things like that.

"If there are any papers like that, she would have left them in the safe," Huck said as he left.

Everyone sat quietly in the waiting room waiting for Huck to come back. He would be the only one who knew the combination to the safe. When he finally came back, he had the file and handed it to the doctor.

"Well?" Fitz asked. "What is it?"

"Who is James Novak?" Dr. Shelep asked.

"My Chief of Staff's husband. Why?" Fitz questioned.

"I need to get in touch with him. We need Mr. Novak here right away."

Fitz sent an agent to go get Cyrus and James and bring them to the hospital.

"What's going on?" James asked when they arrived. The doctor asked who James was and he took him back to the room where Olivia was. "She's going to be okay right?"

"We aren't sure yet, Mr. Novak. Ms. Pope has had brain surgery last night and we did remove the bullet. She'll be in a coma for a while. Actually, it's up to her when she will wake up. She could wake up today or ten years from now."

"Does everyone else know?"

"Ms. Pope left you as her medical proxy. You are the one who makes the decisions for her as long as she can't speak for herself," Dr. Shelep explained. He saw the confusion on James' face. "You didn't know?" James shook his head no. "The machine is breathing for her right now. You have to decide if we keep her on it or take her off. You'll have to decide soon though. I'm very sorry, Mr. Novak. This choice can only be yours. I'll leave you with her."


	5. Proxy

"Olivia, why would you leave me this responsibility?" James asked. He sat next to her bed for a while talking to her. He wasn't sure if she could hear him but he hoped that she could. "You can't leave me this responsibility to make this decision for you. I don't think you want me to take you off life support. If I do, Fitz will hate me. But if it's what you want and I don't, you'll hate me. I don't know what to do here, Liv. I'll be back soon." He kissed her forehead and left the room.

James went back to the waiting room with everyone. They all stared at him when he came into their vision.

"How is she?" Abby asked.

"She's on life support now. A machine is helping her breath. I don't know what she would want from me," James explained.

"What do you mean from you?" Cyrus questioned.

"Olivia made me her medical proxy."

"She did what?!" Fitz yelled.

The room became chaotic with everyone yelling why and wanting answers. No one's question could be understood or answered by James.

"GUYS! I'm sorry, I didn't know she did this. If anyone should be her proxy it should have been Cyrus but she made me. Cyrus has known her longer than any of us," James said.

"But why would she name you then?" Cyrus asked.

"We discussed it once. But it was a few years ago. We talked about what we would want to happen to us if either of us were to get on life support. She told me what she wanted but I can't actually do that. It was years ago, she could have changed her mind by now."

"James," Fitz started, "this is Olivia Pope we are talking about. She doesn't change her mind. What did she tell you she wanted?"

James drew in a deep breath and let it out. "In the event that she would be on life support for an undetermined amount of time, Olivia doesn't want it. She wants to be taken off of it immediately."

The room got quiet and everyone sat down. No one was sure what to say or what to do.

"You are not going to kill her," Fitz nearly screamed.

"I don't want to kill her, and it feels like that's exactly what I'd be doing. But it's no one's decision but mine, Fitz. If it's what Olivia wants, then it's what I have to do. She doesn't want to be hooked up to all of that. She isn't Liv like that."

Dr. Shelep came into the waiting room and could feel the tension. "Mr. Novak, if you agree to it, they may go in and see Ms. Pope."

James let everyone go in to see her two at a time. Fitz was the last to go in. He didn't want anyone else in the room and went in alone.

"Hi."

_ "Hi."_


	6. Fight

Fitz took her hand in his and held on to it like a life line for him. As if it was the only way he could breathe. He sat in the chair next to the bed and stayed with her. Her skin was warm like it usually was to him. She looked at peace like she was only sleeping except the tubs down her throat didn't help. Fitz could keep up with the beeping from the monitors. His heartbeat matched hers like it always did when they were together.

"Livie," he started, "we're all here. The gladiators, Cyrus, James, Tom, everyone. I'm not going anywhere and neither are you. I'm not going to say goodbye because you aren't going to go. I will not let you die on me. We have too much to do. There's so many things that we have to do together. Remember on the campaign, we talked about Vermont? You want to make jam and have kids. Live in a big house with plenty of room for them. You can't leave me alone with that dream. You are going to have to fight harder than any other time now. You have to stay with me. I can't lose you. I know I sound selfish but we are in this together. But you'll have to fight harder than I can. Fight to come back, Livie. We still have to work on the next campaign for the second term. Don't do it for me. There are so many people that count on you. Abby, Huck, Harrison, all need you. They can't handle being a fixer without you. You haven't trained them well enough for that. I will not plan a funeral for you. And I won't allow anyone else to do it either. Whatever you think you are going to do about leaving me, change your mind. You have to stay with me. I shouldn't have let you go before. I was wrong to do it. The Summit Conference was a disaster. I couldn't help but think about you and how wrong I was to let you go. You and I both know that I could never do that. Please, Liv. Come back to us. I'm going to fight harder than ever for you and I. We belong together. We're in this together."

Fitz rambled on about anything he could think of. As long as he kept talking to her, she wouldn't die. Olivia would stay alive as long as she could sense him near her.

He put his head down on the bed next to her and fell asleep. After a while, Tom came in and told him it was time to go back to the White House.

"I'll be back in the morning, Liv. Just remember to keep fighting, please." Fitz kissed her cheek and went out of the room.


	7. Battle

Fitz came back every day for the next week. Abby, Harrison, Huck, Cyrus, and James all took turns staying with her. Fitz was forced to go to the White House in the morning and spend the day there, and then when everything was done for the day he was allowed to spend the night with her. Nothing had changed in Olivia's condition. The machine was still breathing for her. She hadn't even twitched a finger.

Cyrus and James were sitting with her on Thursday when Fitz came in.

"Any changes?" he asked.

"No, Fitz. There aren't," James said.

He kissed her cheek and pulled a chair to her side.

They had some time with her when Dr. Shelep came in. "Mr. Novak, I'm sorry but you need to make a decision about Ms. Pope. Do you want her taken off life support or not?"

"James, do not do it. You know Olivia as well as I do. She doesn't want to die. What she said to you during the campaign was her venting. She has too much to live for," Fitz scolded.

James left the room with the doctor. Leaving Cyrus and Fitz in there alone with her.

"Liv, I don't know what to do for you kid. I can't watch you die like this," Cyrus told her.

"She IS NOT dying. She is going to come out of this," Fitz yelled.

"I don't like this any more than you do, Fitz. Do you think I actually like having to sit here every day waiting for her to even twitch a finger? That this is some kind of game of how patient I can be? That all of us can be? She isn't getting better. She won't get any better. She is going to die!"

"Don't you ever say that again," Fitz stared at him. He stood up, stood his ground, ready for the impending battle between him and Cyrus. It was bound to come eventually, now was the time. "Olivia is not going to die! I won't allow it."

"You won't allow it? Allow it? Do you realize what you're saying? This isn't the same as you 'allowing' her to be with Edison or you 'allowing' her to come back to the White House. This is life and death. You don't get to choose what she does, it's up to her. If she feels the need to die because she got shot in the head, then that's what she is going to do. She shouldn't have even been there at that damn party. She just didn't want to make you uncomfortable."

"So we're back to it's my fault?"

"If you didn't start a relationship with her to begin with, she never would have felt compelled to take in your feelings about her presence at the party."

"That's how this is going to go? Then it's YOUR fault for bringing her on the campaign. I can't help that I love her. Or that she loves me. It kills you that much that the girl you brought on to save the day, fell in love with me?"

"I never should have let her on the campaign with you. It's your fault that she was shot though. You couldn't just patch things up with her and make everything right in the world. You had to make her feel again like the mistress that she is."

Fitz's anger was beyond boiled. "DO NOT EVER CALL HER THAT!"

Neither of the men realized that the machine keeping track of her heart rate had started beeping like crazy until after Fitz yelled. They looked down to her and saw her head and chest thrashing around. Dr. Shelep came running into the room and told the nurses to get Fitz and Cyrus out of the room. Cyrus moved out of the way and let them in while Fitz yelled at the doctors and Olivia.

"OLIVIA! YOU WILL NOT DIE ON ME! Do you understand me? You cannot die!" he yelled. Tom came in and pulled Fitz out of the room so the doctors could work. "Don't die, Livie."


	8. Thanks

Dr. Shelep came out to the waiting room an hour after Cyrus and Fitz left Olivia. "What were the two of you doing in there before her machines went off?" he asked them. No one could detect which tone the doctor was using.

"Fighting. It's what we do about Olivia," Cyrus said.

"Well, congratulations to you two. Ms. Pope was fighting the tubes," Dr. Shelep told them.

Fitz ran in front of the doctor. "She's alive? Awake?"

"Not awake, but very much alive. Whatever the two of you were arguing about her for she could sense. She's breathing very well on her own now. We've taken her off of life support but she is still in a coma. I know that you are the President and all the power you have but Ms. Pope is my patient. I will not have you in that room disrupting the peace that she needs. You can't just go in there and start yelling at anyone."

"But she's alive?" Cyrus questioned.

"Yes, Ms. Pope is alive. Mr. Novak, you don't have to make any life support decisions now. Ms. Pope seems to have made them for you."

"Thank you, Dr. Shelep. We won't disrupt her anymore," James told him. "You two are not going to be back there together with her anymore. God only knows what could have happened. Fitz, let Cyrus go back and say goodnight before we head home."

Fitz waited for them to come back so he could spend the night with her. He had sent Tom to get some of her things from the apartment and come back.

"She looks a lot better without the tubes in her now," Cyrus told Fitz. "Listen, I'm sorry about earlier. It's not your fault. Whoever shot her, it's their fault."

"I know, Cy. It's not your fault either."

"I don't regret bringing her to the campaign."

"I don't regret it either. I'll see you in the morning."

Fitz went back to her room. He stood in the doorway staring at her for several minutes. She looked so much better without all the tubes down her throat. Liv looked skinnier than she did before. Which she hadn't actually had a meal in the past ten days. Her hair was a mess, curly and scattered. Fitz went in closer to her and held her hand. He noticed her skin was a lot drier than earlier. He bent down and kissed her lips for the first time in months. She may not have looked like it, but she was still Olivia, his Livie.

"Hi, sweet baby," he said and kissed her again. "I know it was hard to do. Thank you for fighting. We're getting closer. Now you just need to open your eyes and come out of this coma. You'll be so much better when you do. Please, just open your eyes or move a finger."

"Fitz, she can't hear you." He looked up to the door and saw Mellie standing there with a box in her hands.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. Fitz was a little unsettled with her presence at the hospital there.

"I came to see how she was doing. Cyrus said that the tubes were gone. I come every other day. Usually you are at the White House though. We have a bit of girl talk but she doesn't say anything," Mellie said. "I wished the worst to her when I found out about the two of you. I was upset and wished that she would disappear, leave you, and sometimes even die. I didn't really mean it. I was just hurt. This is my fault."

"It's not your fault, Mellie. We know you didn't really mean it. Everyone is looking for this shooter and we're going to find them. It wasn't your fault, or mine, or Cyrus's. We're blaming each other because we just want someone to blame. We have someone to blame we just don't know who that person is yet. What's in the box?"

"Sorry, I ran into Tom in the elevator. I said I'd bring these in, here."

She handed him the box of things from Olivia's apartment. He sat the box down for later and continued to talk to Mellie and Olivia.

"Thank you for bringing those in," he said. Mellie nodded and the room was quiet for several minutes. "Mellie, I…"

"You do love her, don't you?"

"More than anything. I can't help it. I don't mean to be hurtful or anything like that. I love you, just not the same way I love her. We've been friends all through our marriage but we don't love each other like a normal husband and wife. Our relationship is…"

"Friendly. We're more friends than married. I know. There's a lot that we have done and gone through but we don't actually have a marriage. It's a front. Both for us and the nation. I've been thinking, Fitz. Neither one of us is happy. We haven't been in a long time. And I can see that you love Olivia. And I know that she loves you too. But we aren't working out. Maybe…maybe it's time we go our separate ways?" Mellie said. She looked between her hands and Olivia while she spoke. "I've been sitting around the White House for the past two weeks, since she was shot. Everyone's going chaotic there. I keep hearing people ask 'what would Olivia Pope do?' and it got to me too. And I think that if our situations were reversed, she would let you go too. Because she loves you and wants you to be happy. And I do. I do love you and I want you to be happy. I just love you as a friend not a husband anymore. So what do you think?"

Fitz had walked across the room away from them. He listened to every word that Mellie said carefully. For several minutes he thought he was dreaming. Mellie was actually agreeing to a divorce? Something seemed off about this.

"Mellie, what's the goal here? Are you trying to get my hopes up and then rip my heart out? If that's what this sick game is about, I want nothing to do with it."

"I'm serious. I think it's about time for both of us to be happy. I'm tired of trying to play happy and be okay with you having Olivia in the dark. I know you're tired of keeping her in the dark. I just want to be happy and get normal. I've played the happy First Lady long enough to satisfy what I want. My intentions are clear. I just want a mutual divorce where neither of us comes out as the injured party. Olivia's going to need you when she wakes up. Whenever that is, she will need you, whether she wants to admit it or not. And you need her. I'm not playing any games. I want a divorce, even if you don't. But let's be honest, you wanted to divorce me the second you laid eyes on her."

He went over and hugged Mellie. "I don't know what to say. Thank you is a start I think. Mellie, you don't know how much this means. And Olivia would say it too if she could. This is… thank you Mellie."

_ "Thank you, Mellie."_


	9. Speech

"Hey Livie, you can open your eyes any time now. We're all waiting for you to wake up and start barking orders," Fitz said when he came in the next night.

_ "I want to, Fitz. I really do."_

Olivia could hear everything that was going on around her but she couldn't respond. Her body was still recovering from the surgery and the shooting to move any muscle. She wanted to open her eyes and see Fitz sitting there holding her hand but she could not make her body work the way she wanted it to.

"It's okay, Liv. We'll try again later. Mellie wanted to make sure that you had plenty of flowers in here so she sent me with some more." He looked around the room to see all the roses, tulips, carnations, cards, gift bags, and balloons everywhere. "These ones are white. They are so beautiful but not as much as you are. I met with my lawyer today. He said that Mellie isn't fighting against the divorce. We're still going on with it. We're going to give a conference tomorrow afternoon. I'll make sure that Abby has the TV turned on here for you to listen to. Cyrus was sorry he couldn't make it this afternoon but he said he'd be here tonight before he headed home."

Fitz pulled the comforter, which Tom brought from her apartment, closer to her shoulders.

He lay in the hospital bed, which the nurses brought in earlier in the week, next to her and fell asleep.

In the morning he kissed her goodbye when Abby arrived and headed off to the White House.

"Good morning, Cyrus. Ready for the day?" Fitz asked in a happy mood.

"Yes, why so chipper?" he questioned. Something was definitely putting Fitz in a good mood.

"I just have a feeling that something good is going to happen today. I'm not sure what, but it feel like a good day. Press conference at two, don't forget."

"Joint chief's meeting in ten, don't forget."

"Mockery isn't flattering, Cy. I'll be there soon." Fitz went up to the Residence to get some breakfast. "Good morning, Mellie. How is the day looking for you?" He kissed her cheek before taking a bite of an apple.

Mellie wasn't sure what was happening, but she went with it. "The baby is kicking up a storm. Good mood today?"

"Yup, ready for the press conference this afternoon?" Fitz put his hand on her stomach. "He's kicking hard today."

"Yes and yes. My outfit is ready for later and he's got a really strong foot."

"Well, he is due any day now. Hopefully, he's going to cooperate and let us finish this press conference and then decides to come out."

He went down to the Oval and finished preparing his speech before he went to the joint chief's meeting.

At the hospital, Abby sat beside Liv through the day. She, Harrison, Quinn, and Huck would take turns during the week as to who got to sit with her. In the room, there was a chart as to who was going to be there when.

"Fitz is going to start talking any minute, Liv. Ready to watch?" Abby turned on the TV to the news and waited for Fitz to start.

"Good afternoon, America. My personal life isn't something that we normally discuss but this seems to change a lot of things in this situation. Most of you know that Olivia Pope worked on my campaign and has become a very close friend and confidant to both my wife and I. What everyone does not know is that she and I have been having an affair since a few months after she started working on the campaign. Mellie and I have discussed in. After long consideration and years of unhappiness, we have decided to get a divorce. Our children are content with this situation as well. They pray as well as I do that Olivia will be coming out of her coma soon and come back to us. We want to give Ms. Pope all the time she needs to recover and get back to herself. She was shot twice. Once in the shoulder, another in the head. It will take time for her recovery and we want the best for her. Anyone that has been in the same room as Olivia and I can tell you that we have a special bond to each other. She has been a lifeline to both me and Mellie since she started."

As Fitz talked about Liv, her heart rate monitor started to beep chaotically. Her blood pressure was getting higher and her heart beats for frequent. Her body started to thrash around on the bed, nearly ripping out her IV.

Doctors and nurses ran into the room and started to clear the way to get her back. Abby went out to the hallway to get out of the way and let them work.

"Olivia and I have discussed what we want in our life together. I want to apologize to all the hurt parties in this event, especially Mellie. Neither of us meant for this to happen it just did. I cannot and will not apologize for falling in love with someone who isn't my wife. Thankfully, Mellie understands that." He looked down at his papers. "I love Olivia Pope. Thank you for coming everyone. Have a good day." And with that he walked out with Mellie at his side.

Olivia stopped moving and her body went back to its resting spot. Her heart rate started to slow down like it should be and so did her blood pressure. The doctors and nurses backed away from her and watched the monitors. Abby could see through the glass door what was going on.

_"I love you too, Fitz."_


	10. Hear

"Cyrus, get down here with him and James now!" Abby yelled into the phone.

The doctors did another set of tests on Olivia and had to wait for James to come down to the hospital since he was the only one they were allowed to tell. James could decide who was with him when he was told about Olivia's condition.

Fitz, James, and Cyrus walked off the elevator ten minutes later scared to death of what could have happened to call them down there.

"Is she okay? She's with us right?" Fitz asked in a hurry to Abby.

"They can't tell me. They have to tell James."

"Mr. Novak, we have some good news for everyone," Dr. Shelep started. "Ms. Pope has had a seizure."

"How is that good news?" Cyrus questioned angrily.

"No, it is good news, Mr. Beene. Her seizure has had some effect to the good. She still isn't moving fingers or toes or things like that but we did a light test on her eyes. She is responding to the light. She hasn't opened her eyes by herself but when we opened her eyes, she followed the light. Ms. Pope is coming out of her coma. Slowly, but surely she is coming out of it."

Fitz and Cyrus let out a long breath they didn't know they were holding. "So she can wake up any minute?" Fitz asked.

"Yes. Now it's up to her to move anything to show that she is still here." Dr. Shelep's pager went off. "I'm sorry, you can go see her. I'll come back as soon as I can."

They all went into the room to see her. Even though they got good news, Olivia still didn't look like herself.

Abby held Fitz back into the hallway outside her room.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I have to tell you something," Abby said. "I turned on your press conference like you wanted. When you started to talk about her, her heart rate went up. And her blood pressure got higher. She started to shake all over. But when you said that you love her, she stopped. I don't know what it was. I think she can hear us."

"I hope she can. She'd only be in a semi coma then. If she can hear us then we can talk her into coming back."

"Fitz, she was shot in the head. She's not just going to wake up and be the same person. It's going to take time for her to be herself again."

"I know. I'm just hoping she will come out of this soon."

"We all are."

As they went into the room, James and Cyrus were sitting in the corner barely speaking and when they were it was in whispers.

Fitz sat down next to Olivia and kissed her lips. "Livie, if you really can hear me, please do something to show us that you really are with us. Move a finger or a toe or something. You can do it."

_"I'm trying. But I can't do it."_

They all watched her closely for any sign of movement.

"It's alright, Liv. Don't strain yourself," Cyrus added.

"Cyrus, just…"

"The two of you are not going to fight in here," James told them. "You could send her back further into a coma and I won't let you do that. If you need to argue, get out of here."

"We won't argue, James," Fitz said. He turned back to Liv and held her hand. "Abby told me you had a seizure when I gave my speech. If you come out of this coma in the next day, I'll let you yell at me. I'll sit here and be quiet and just let you yell."

_"Believe me, I'm going to yell."_

"I know that isn't how we planned it. But things have changed since you were shot. We had to adjust the plans to fit this. You would understand if you knew everything. Between both our teams, everything is being handled. It's going pretty good too. You wake up and I'll let you fix everything to your liking."

_"I'll have to fix everything since you all don't know how to do it right."_

"I've got to get back to the White House, Fitz. I'll come by tomorrow," Cyrus said.

"I'll be back after work tomorrow, Liv," Abby told her. "Harrison will be here tomorrow."

Fitz walked everyone to the elevator and came back to her.

"It's just you and me now, so you can open your eyes for me, Livie. Just one eye so I can see you and then I'll let you go back. Dr. Shelep says that you have eye function so show me what you got." He waited several minutes for her to open an eye. "That's alright, sweet baby. I'm starting to think that people are starting to give up on you. But you had a seizure today and it turned out for the better. I can't give up on you, so do it for me please. I know you are probably tired of laying in the bed and you want to get up and order people around so let's do it. When you open your eyes, I will get a wheelchair and take you outside. I want to tell you before it happens, but things are going to change soon. Tomorrow will be different for you."


	11. Awake

When Harrison arrived at the hospital the next morning, he was met with two agents outside her door. Fitz explained to him that since he outted her yesterday, she would need protection. But Fitz didn't want her to know. Harrison sat with Liv for the day after Fitz left. He read her the cases that they had been working on and how they planned on fixing it. A little after noon the agents let another visitor in to see her with Harrison.

"Hey, Liv. Harrison, would you mind giving us some girl time?" she asked.

"Sure, Mrs. Grant. I'll be back in a bit." Harrison left the room and went to go get some lunch while they talked.

Mellie sat next to Olivia for a few minutes in silence. She watched her monitor beep at a steady pace making sure she wasn't upset with her presence there.

"Well Liv, Fitz says that you can hear me, so I'll give this a shot. I don't know if Fitz told you or not but our son was born last night. He's adorable. I can't wait for you to meet him. I know we haven't been the best of friends in a long time but I want that to change," Mellie said. "Anyway, let's see. We named him Teddy. Theodore. He's in the nursery on the seventh floor here. That's why Fitz left last night. I wanted to explain that to you myself. He's up there now with Teddy. He'll be down to see you in a bit, I'm sure. I wanted to tell you that I forgive you for sleeping with my husband and then playing nice with me. I probably would have done the same thing if the situation is reversed. Fitz loves you. More than he's ever loved me. I used to hate you for that. But it isn't your fault. It just happens. I want to be friends with you again. And be friends with Fitz after the divorce. Obviously, we'll have some sort of connection since he's the father of my children. And he's going to marry you so I'm sure that we'll have some kind of contact. I don't want to fight with you anymore. Fitz said he's been trying to bribe you with things. I guess you're allowed to yell at him if you wake up soon and that you can order people around when you do. Well, the Olivia Pope that I know doesn't need anyone's permission to yell or give orders, she just does it. So how about you wake up and do that." Mellie stared at Olivia's face for a minute and saw no movement. "Yeah, I didn't think that would work. I want you to know that Fitz and I are going to get a divorce. The paperwork has been filed with the courts. We'll be divorced probably sooner than you open your eyes. But who knows when that will be." Mellie moved away and looked out the window. "I blame myself for this. Fitz says not to but I can't help it. I wished so many times for you to just go away but you never did. I think it might be karma coming for me."

Mellie stood facing out the window talking. She didn't realize that Olivia's eyes were open and watching her. Liv's heart rate was the same. No change in the sounds around the room. But she was awake.

"I don't really believe in karma though. Everything happens for a reason. So there must be a reason for you to have been shot." Mellie turned around and looked up from the floor and saw Olivia's big brown eyes staring at her. "HOLY SHIT! Doctor!" Mellie ran over to Liv and pushed the call button beside the bed. "Get her doctor, she's awake."

Olivia watched Mellie's every movement but never moved her head. She wanted to tell Mellie that she didn't blame her for anything at all. Most of all blaming her for hating her. None of it was Mellie's fault and she had no reason to feel guilty for her being shot. But when she tried to open her mouth she couldn't get words to come out.

Dr. Shelep and two nurses came into the room and started her tests. She groaned when Dr. Shelep started to flash the light in her eyes without warning, but she followed it.

"Ms. Pope, I'm Dr. Shelep, I've been treating you for the past few weeks. Can you try to speak for me?" He stood close to her head so she could see him without straining herself. She tried to say something but all that came out were gargled sounds. "That's alright. Can you squeeze my fingers?" He put his hand in Olivia's but she didn't even flinch. "Can you feel this?" He ran his pen across her toes. She shook her head no. "Ok, Ms. Pope. Do you know where you are?" Liv nodded yes. "Do you remember what happened?" She slowly shook her head no. "You were shot. Once in the head, another in the shoulder."

_"That explains a lot."_

"I'll send for Mr. Novak to get here. Mrs. Grant, congratulations on the baby," Dr. Shelep said on the way out.

"Thank you," Mellie replied as they left. "Olivia, I'm glad that you're awake. I'll have Fitz come down here now, if you want."

She nodded yes and closed her eyes.

Mellie went with her agents back up to the nursery and found Fitz.

"You have to go see Olivia," she yelled when she saw him across the floor.

"What's wrong?" Fitz could hear the urgency in Mellie's voice. Something had to have gone wrong for her to sound like that.

"Nothing is wrong, she's awake!"


	12. Therapy

Olivia watched Mellie walk out with her agents and wondered why two of them were staying. She closed her eyes and nearly fell asleep again. After several minutes she opened her eyes. She could feel that Fitz was somewhere near her. She looked around and laid her eyes on the door. Within seconds, Fitz came bursting in.

"You are awake. Mellie wasn't lying."

_"Mellie is cruel at times but she wouldn't tell you I was awake when I wasn't."_

Fitz bent down and kissed her and this time she was able to kiss him back.

"Hi." He waited for her to say something but nothing came out. Fitz watched her mouth move but no sound. "Livie, say something."

Two nurses came in and took Olivia to get some tests done before they talked with anyone.

"I'll be right here when you get back, Livie."

After an hour Dr. Shelep came back in.

"Mr. President," Dr. Shelep announced when he went in the room. James and Cyrus followed behind him.

"She actually is awake," Cyrus said filled with joy.

"Would you all mind coming out to the hallway with me?" Dr. Shelep asked. Fitz, Cyrus, and James went to the hallway to the waiting room where the gladiators were at. "Ms. Pope is indeed awake. And responding to us in some way. Still, she has no function in her arms of legs. She knows where she is but not how she got here. She isn't speaking because she can't. Her scans show that the bullet nicked her the part of her brain that controls her speaking, and major motor functions. She has no feeling in her arms or legs. For now, she is paralyzed from the neck down. There is a chance that she will be better with some intense physical therapy and speech therapy. But even then, there is a chance that it will not happen."

"So you're saying that it is more than likely that she will be paralyzed forever?" James asked.

"It's about a 98% chance that she will be like this for the rest of her life. The therapy can help some if she really wants it to help. A lot of doctors think it's just mind over matter in therapy. If Ms. Pope wants the therapy to help, it will help," Dr. Shelep explained.

"She can't even speak for herself what is she supposed to do at therapy? Keep shaking her head no?" Cyrus yelled.

Fitz excused himself and went back to her room. He stood outside the glass doors watching her. Olivia stared at him through the glass. She could see that he was upset, upset enough that his eyes started to water. As soon as his did, she started to get teary. Fitz wasn't sure he was strong enough to go in and tell her that she might never walk again. But he knew that he had to be the one to tell her. Cyrus would make it seem worse than it is. James would get too emotional. Her gladiators weren't in a position to tell their boss that she would never run again.

Slowly, Fitz walked into the room taking a seat on the bed next to her.

She looked between him and the agents outside the door with Tom and Daniel.

_"What are they doing here?"_

As if he could understand her question he answered. "Everyone knows about us now. I have to make sure that you are well protected. These two agents are here to do that. They are just to make sure that no one that isn't allowed comes in here to see you." Liv's heart beat started to speed up. He could tell that she was getting upset about it. "Olivia, listen to me. It's for your protection. They haven't been in the room to see you. They just guard the door. You aren't going anywhere for now. They are just here outside the door. Relax, sweet baby. They aren't going to follow you."

Olivia relaxed a little and her heart rate started to slow down to where it should be.

"We are going to get you the best therapy there is. But you have to want it for it to work. Dr. Shelep says that you don't have feeling in your arms or legs. We are going to find the best treatment for you and get you back on your feet. And your speech isn't working so we'll find you the best way for that too. But you have to want it. I need you to want it. So that you will get better. Please, Livie. You want to get better right?"

She nodded her head yes.

"Good, I'll be back in a few minutes." He kissed her cheek and left the room. "Dr. Shelep?"

"Yes?"

"Get me the best therapist number you can find for both physical and speech. Olivia will be taking it. Fly them in immediately. I don't care the cost of anything. Get me the best. Cyrus will coordinate the details of getting them here."

Dr. Shelep looked passive at him. "I'm sorry, Sir. It isn't you decision to make. Mr. Novak has to make that decision for Ms. Pope until she is able to tell us what she wants."

James walked in front of Dr. Shelep and looked him in the eyes. "Make the call."


	13. Home

"Ms. Pope is doing better," Dr. Shelep told them. "No seizures or flare up in her heart rate. She's doing her therapy extensively, both the physical and the speech."

Olivia had spent the past month in the hospital. She had speech therapy every day and physical therapy every other. She had gained strength and movement in her right hand and was able to write now. Her speech wasn't doing well though. She still couldn't form a word.

"Are you saying she can go home?" Fitz asked.

"That is up to Ms. Pope. She still needs someone to care for her," Dr. Shelep explained. "She can't be alone. She would need constant care."

Fitz knew that Olivia wouldn't want to be taken care of. She never had been. But this was different, she couldn't be by herself. It only made sense to come home and stop living in the hospital.

"James, you can't take care of her. You have a daughter now," Fitz said.

"You have three children. What's the difference?" James countered.

"Mine live with their mother in California. Olivia needs constant care like he said. I can provide that for her."

"Fitz, you're forgetting a major fact," Cyrus added. Fitz gave him a confused look. "You are the President!"

"I resign. No one can take care of her like I can."

"We aren't talking about her sexual needs," Cyrus bellowed. "Olivia needs physical therapy every other day and her speech therapist comes every single day. You have responsibilities at the White House that you have to tend to. Her team is…"

"Not equipped enough to handle her," Fitz yelled. "James, ultimately it is her decision. All you have to do is let her decide."

Dr. Shelep interjected at that point. "Actually, Sir. Ms. Pope is able to write now. She just has to write down where she wants to go and it is binding. She can decide for herself even though she can't speak. She's writing full sentences and can tell us."

They all went into Olivia's hospital room to talk to her. She was sitting in the corner looking out the window. Liv had gotten into the habit of going outside for a walk with someone about three in the afternoon and now it was nearly seven. She hated to be in the hospital all day. It drove her crazy to not have any wind or fresh air around her.

James went in ahead of everyone and sat on the window sill in front of her.

"We'll go on a walk soon, I promise. But we need to decide something," James told her. She looked at him sternly, making sure that he was being serious. "Dr. Shelep says that you can go home, if you want. You do need constant care though. The thing is… Cyrus and I both work and take care of the baby all day. We love you but we can't take care of both of you."

_"I understand." _Liv wrote down.

"Your team could take care of you," James continued.

_"They have their own lives. I'd rather stay here."_

"There is another option. You could stay with Fitz in the White House."

_"NO!"_

"It would get you out of the hospital, Liv. You can actually go outside any time you want to with the therapists you have and the nurses that take care of you."

_"Fitz will only worry about me and he will hover. I can take care of myself. I have plenty of money to pay for the therapists and the nurse that I need at my apartment. I don't want to change anyone's life."_

Fitz read every word that Olivia wrote down. Of course she would want to go home to her apartment. But there wasn't anyone living with her who really did care about her. Nurses could be bought but you can't buy their actual care.

_"I want to go home to my place. I've been gone long enough. I can do my therapies, have nurses come in, and run OPA from there."_

"Absolutely not!" Fitz yelled. Everyone turned to see him. His face was red with anger and his arms crossed across his chest. "You were shot. You just barely have function in your hand. You will not run that business in this condition." Cyrus and James were waiting for the foot to drop, and this was it. Now it was between Fitz and Olivia about her work. "We need the room."

Cyrus, James, and Dr. Shelep all left them alone to talk.

_"You don't have a say in this."_

"Really? You were shot in the head because of me! And I don't get a say?"

_"It wasn't your fault. Not everything is about you."_

"We know who shot you. She wasn't aiming for you. She was aiming for me but you got in the way. I know why she tried to shoot me. Your Defiance scheme played to your favor. You got me to the White House and then Verna wanted me dead." Fitz stopped to shake it off. He knew he would have to deal with that later. "You aren't going back to your apartment."

_"You can't stop me."_

Fitz pointed outside the door to the two agents who stood guard all day for the past month. "They work for me. You are not going back there. I will have the two of them drag you to the White House, even in your condition, and you will stay there if you try to leave. I can take better care of you than anyone else can. We will get you set up with therapy and nurses at the White House in the Residence. You can do all that there but I refuse to let you run OPA in your situation."

_"This is why I wanted James as my proxy and not you."_


	14. Final

"Explain yourself," Fitz demanded. It was a touchy subject for Fitz when it came to who decided things for Olivia, especially in the event of her living will.

_"Get Dr. Shelep back in here so I can go home."_

"You aren't going anywhere unless it's home with me," Fitz said as he bent down to kiss her. She turned her head away and he kissed her cheek instead. "I need to know that you are going to be okay and how you are progressing."

_"That's what a phone is for."_

Fitz was getting pretty tired of this game with her. They were both stubborn but one of them would have to give in eventually. So he decided to compromise. "What do you want?"

_"Home to my apartment."_

"What do I have to do to get you to come home with me?"

_"You make it sound like a pick up line. I'm not going home with you. You have too many things to do and hovering over me is not one of them. I need to be home at my apartment where I can feel in my own environment."_

"You will either come back to the White House with me or I will resign right this minute and go home with you. Take your pick."

_"You can't resign. You seem to know what we did to put you in that house. Why would you waste it on me?"_

"Because I love you and I want to marry you and part of being married to you means taking care of you. And now, you need my care more than anything else. Quit trying to fight me on this, you will lose."

_"We aren't married! This is not Vermont, there are no children, you aren't the mayor and I don't make jam. This isn't the dream that we wanted before you let me go. I don't know why you still care though. I get that you divorced Mellie but you needed to do that for you. Our whole lives don't always revolve around each other."_

"Dammit, Olivia, I said no!" He yelled at her. "You aren't going anywhere unless it's home with me. That's final."

Dr. Shelep stood with James and Cyrus in the waiting room and could hear Fitz yelling. Fitz came out to them.

"That was a lot of yelling, Fitz. You better not have upset her," Cyrus said.

"She'll be fine. She wants to sign the discharge papers now. She is coming home with me," Fitz ordered.

"Mr. President," Dr. Shelep started. "I just wanted to inform you that if Ms. Pope isn't where she wants to be or if she doesn't feel safe somewhere, the likelihood of her getting better even with the therapy will decrease drastically. Ms. Pope needs to be somewhere that she wants to be."

"And she wants to be at the White House with me. Now make it happen."


	15. Avoid

Olivia had been staying at the White House with Fitz for the past two weeks. She was doing her therapy every day, both physical and speech. The therapists thought she might be over doing it but Fitz told them that's just the way she was. Liv was still upset with Fitz for making her come stay with him when she really only wanted to go home so she had made sure to time his arrivals back at the Residence with her therapies and her bed time. So far she had it down perfectly.

In the past weeks she had started to gain more strength in her right arm and in her legs but her left arm didn't want to work since that's the one she was shot in. Olivia had demanded that she spend every day working on her therapy. In the morning she would have speech therapy then after lunch she would do her physical therapy.

Fitz didn't know how well she was progressing. Whenever he came up to the Residence she was either asleep or gone somewhere else to do her therapy. They hadn't really spoken for a week. He was so busy with the crises in the country but tried harder every day to go see Olivia.


	16. Fired

"Ms. Pope, you really should stop for the day," her physical therapist told her. Since staying at the White House for the past two months she only wanted to do therapy. Fitz still wouldn't let her work on anything involving OPA and she was getting tired of it. It was the fifth day in a row that she spent all day working on her walking. "If you keep pushing yourself this hard, you are going to relapse and have no feeling in your legs."

Olivia stared at him she wanted to tell him to shove it and leave.

"If you aren't going to help me, then get the hell out!" Liv yelled at him. It had been the first sentence that she was actually able to say. She'd been able to say little words but nothing like a sentence until now. Liv held onto the railings on either side of her as strong as she could to help her walk. She was still a bit wobbly on her feet but she was pushing through it. "I'm serious, either help me or get out!"

The physical therapist left knowing he was fired. Minutes after he exited the room, Olivia's nurse came in.

"Ms. Pope your lunch is ready," she told her.

"I'm not hungry. Can you grab me my cane please?"

"Ma'am, you've been doing this for the past six hours. I think you need to take a break and eat. You didn't have breakfast this morning. And you never ate dinner last night. Have some lunch and then come back to this."

Olivia turned and saw the nurse still standing near the door. "I asked you for my cane. Hand it to me."

"I'm sorry Ms. Pope, you need to sit back in your chair and have something to eat."

"You're right, Maddie right?"

"Yes ma'am."

"You're fired." Olivia was beyond pissed off at the people 'trying' to help her. She didn't want to eat or stop; all she wanted to do was get her legs to work better. She fired her speech therapist the day before because she was being very rude and ordered her to stop trying to make full sentences. "You are fired, Maddie. You people work for me. I pay you. I make the rules and decide when to stop. Get out!"

Maddie was the last to go on Olivia's payroll. The only people left to be around her were the agents Fitz assigned. Liv still wasn't happy about that but was dealing with it.


	17. Refuse

Fitz was gone for a few days for the Summit Conference but he called to check on her every few hours. Liv wouldn't come to the phone but Scott and Adam told him that she was doing okay working on her therapy and how tired she was at night. They didn't want to worry him so far from home that she had fired everyone on her staff and that she wasn't eating.

Olivia pushed herself to do some more therapy with her legs alone before she went up to bed at 11 that night. She wasn't very hungry so she skipped dinner. The next day she had the agents take her back to the room and she did some more therapy on her legs and left hand. Liv didn't eat anything that day. She had some water but that was it. The day after was the same. No food, only water and therapy. Her two agents begged her to eat something so she wouldn't pass out but she refused. The next day she went down to do therapy after she skipped breakfast.

"Ms. Pope?" Adam tried to get her attention while she did her therapy but she ignored him. "Marine One just landed, the President is back."

Olivia ignored all of what he said. She was too focused on trying to get her left arm to work right for her. Liv sat in her wheelchair next to the table. The White House chef had brought her a plate of steak, mashed potatoes, and corn hoping that would convince her to eat.

Scott and Adam left Olivia to her therapy and went to meet Fitz in the Oval.

"Afternoon, Mr. President, did you have a good flight?" Adam asked.

"Very good, no turbulence at all. How is everything going here?" Fitz asked. As he looked up from the paper he was reading he caught the look between Adam and Scott. "What's she done now?"

"Sir, we've been trying to get her to eat. Ms. Pope has refused to eat for the past three days. I'm not even sure when her last meal was. She's been working on her therapy to the point of exhaustion. The chef makes her different foods every meal but she won't eat. We've been looking after her but she ignores us," Scott told him.

"Where is the therapists? Her nurse? They are supposed to be taking care of her."

"Ms. Pope's fired all of them. If we worked for her, we'd be fired too," Scott said.

"Luckily we don't," Adam smirked.

"You're telling me that a woman in a wheelchair who can't talk or move anything other than he hand has the two of you petrified to lose your jobs?"

"Ms. Pope is…"

"She isn't that intimidating. Never mind, I'll go talk to her. I can get her to eat something."

Fitz walked out of the Oval leaving Scott and Adam to fall behind him.

"Do you think we should have told him she can talk and walk?" Scott asked.

"I think he'll figure it out soon."


	18. Kiss

Fitz went up to the Workout room in the Residence and walked in to see Olivia sitting in her wheelchair next to the table.

"I hear someone's being a bad girl," Fitz announced. Olivia turned to see him and then turned back to her hand. She was working with a stress ball in her left hand trying to squeeze it as tight as she could then release it. Fitz walked over to her and kissed her forehead before he bent down to her level. "You haven't eaten in days, you need to eat now."

Olivia ignored him and focused on the stress ball.

He lightly took the ball out of her hand and set it on the floor. Fitz picked up her fork and scooped some of the potatoes on it. "You have to eat." Olivia shook her head no at him but he continued to move the fork closer to her mouth. She turned her head away from him. "Livie, just a little bit. Eat it." Fitz grabbed her chin and turned her back to face him. He got the fork almost to her lips but was more difficult since she kept shaking her head no. "Olivia, eat!"

Fitz tried to force the fork into her mouth but she reached up with her right hand and tossed his hand back making the mashed potatoes fly into his face. "Dammit, Fitz! I said no!" Fitz fell backwards on the floor both is shock that she was talking and that the potatoes were still hot on his face.

He grabbed the napkin and wiped his face clean. "Since when the hell can you talk?!" He screamed.

"You mean your little spies didn't tell you that I could?" Olivia mocked.

Fitz sat up and kneeled in front of her kissing her lips. "God, it's great to hear your voice."

"Oh get over it, Fitzgerald. I'm able to talk, big deal. Before all you wanted me to do was shut up."

"Livie, I haven't heard your voice in nearly three months. It's music. I've missed it."

"Good, because I have plenty to say to you."

"Yell, scream, talk, cry, whatever you want, sweet baby. As long as I can hear you."

Olivia stood up and grabbed the cane off the back of her chair and went over to the railings. She grabbed both sides and slowly walked across them and back.

"You can walk too?"

"Your men in black didn't keep you well informed did they?"

"You fired your staff here and haven't eaten in days. That's all I got. Livie, this is amazing. But why didn't you tell me?"

Liv kept walking back and forth as she talked. "Because I'm still pissed at you. I didn't want to come here. I wanted to go to my apartment. You can't just order me to come stay with you here which you did. I knew you would hover and that's exactly what you did. I can sense you hovering in the doorway when I'm asleep in the bedroom and sense you outside the doors when I'm working on my therapy. It's the same with you. I know you can feel me when I'm around the Oval and you're working or when I'm in the Rose Garden. As for OPA, it's not your choice how I decide if I want to work or not. I've been going mad around here without watching the news or having contact with my team. God only knows what they've messed up while I've been gone. The therapists and the nurse were all cowards. If I want to do extensive therapy then that's what I'm going to do. I don't want to eat anything, I want to get my strength back. I want to go back to work and fix everything that I'm sure you more than anyone has screwed up since I've been gone. There's other things that I need to do. I need to go talk to Mellie and tell her that she had no blame in any of this and that I'm sorry for sleeping with her husband and loving him. I can't help loving you because it feels so natural. And I need to apologize to James for putting him in the position that I did."

"Why did you make James your proxy?" Fitz asked.

"And I want to meet Ella and Teddy and see Karen and Jerry. And my team that you've bared from me. I want to see the polls and your ratings. I want to go back to my apartment and sit on my couch and drink wine and watch the news."

Fitz got up and went between the railings putting his hands on hers to stop her from moving. "You can do whatever you want. I had to make the decision for you about OPA. That job is very stressful and you can't be stressed when you are on the medications you are. Also, you can't have wine with them. No alcohol. I can have everyone come tomorrow and we can have a big dinner if that's what you want. I can send for Mellie and the kids to come here and have James and Cyrus bring Ella. I'll even call your gladiators and tell them to come over. I am trying to do what I think is best for you."

"And I didn't give you that power! You can't control me to do whatever you like. It doesn't work like that. I should have gone back to my apartment and fought you to do it. You took advantage of the situation. It was my decision to make and James's decision to help with. I chose him for a reason."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you choose James as your proxy and not someone else? Those papers were dated at the time of the campaign. You hardly even knew James then but you trusted him with your life?"

"Because I did."

"That's not an answer. You had to have a reason to let a stranger choose that for you."

"It doesn't matter now. No one has to decide anything. I'm better and not going anywhere, except to my apartment."

"It does matter, Olivia. You wanted James to pull the plug on your life. You didn't give that power to Cyrus or your team or me. You gave it to someone you hardly know. I want to know why."

"Because James would stay objective!" Olivia yelled at him. "He would have left the emotions out of it. James would have stayed above the fray and kept in mind what I wanted. He didn't have an emotional stance in this. James could have pulled the plug and left without feeling obligated to consider the options. I left carefully laid out instructions on how everything was to be handled in the event of an occurrence like that. And besides that, those were the wrong papers!"

"So you just wanted James to let you die? To not even consider an idea that you might come out of it. You weren't brain dead so you weren't dead. You came back to us. To me. How am I supposed to just let you die? Wait, what were the wrong papers?"

Olivia didn't realize that she told Fitz about the papers. She just blurted it out without thinking. "The papers you found, or whoever found them, were the wrong ones to find. What was the date on those papers, do you know?"

"August of 2010."

"Exactly, they were out dated. They were supposed to have been shredded long ago. I just kept forgetting about them. James wasn't supposed to have that power after December of 2010."

"Where are the real papers?"

"They were in my desk at my apartment. Who found that copy of my proxy?"

"Huck did. He knows you almost better than I do. Why would he find those ones and not the real ones?"

She sighed and tried to keep walking ahead but Fitz wouldn't let her. "He probably didn't know where to look."

"Olivia, you know him. He would have looked in the open first."

"I don't know, Fitz. I'm not Huck, I can't get in his mind like he can mine."

"What aren't you telling me?" Fitz knew that she was holding something back and he was determined to know whatever it was.

"Do you remember November of that year?"

"We were on the campaign trail all month. That was our…"

"It was our first night together. And we started our relationship. I knew I loved you then. And you told me every chance you had that you loved me. I changed my medical proxy then. Even though I've known Cy the longest and he's like a parent to me, I didn't want him to have that obligation. I didn't want anyone to have that responsibility. I thought about giving it to you."

"You should have. That's exactly what you should have done."

"You can't play God. I decide when I will leave this life. No one else. But I gave you my medical proxy. I knew it wouldn't look good if everyone knew then, but I didn't think anything would happen like that. I wanted you to feel secure that you would have the power to let me die. When you became President and Mellie found out for sure about us and I resigned, I had another one set."

"What was on those other papers?"

"Fitz, you are the President. How is it going to look if the press got wind that an advisor gave you the right to kill her? I burned the set of documents giving you the right to pull it. And when we got into that fight and you let me go, or said you let me go, I knew it was the right thing to do. So I made a new set. Completely forgetting about the ones with James."

"Livie, what did they read?"

She looked down at her feet for several minutes then up to his face, showing she was very serious. "I had nothing left to live for."


	19. Stuck

Fitz kept a tight hold around Olivia's hands. They were quiet for several minutes. He wasn't sure how to respond to her. If she thought she had nothing to live for then why didn't she give up and leave him in this hell.

"I wrote them after you said you let me go. It wasn't supposed to matter to you anymore."

"You matter to me. I love you and I can't let you go. No matter what I say that I don't care or I don't love you, you ought to know that I love you."

"I know, but you brought Mellie into the mix so I went with it. If you wanted to attempt to fix your marriage, who was I to stop you?"

Fitz picked up her chin to really look at her. "You are the only person that I can truly love with everything I own other than my kids. You aren't answering my question though. What did the new papers read?"

"Like I said, I didn't have anything to live for. I wanted to die."

He let go of her hands and walked away from her. He picked up one of the weights on the table and threw it across the room. Fitz was upset and pissed off but Olivia didn't know why. "You want to leave me here in this hell with no chance of survival when I'm done?" He threw a chair to the floor, having a tantrum.

"Fitzgerald!" Olivia yelled to him trying to get his attention. He started pacing and when he got closer to her, she grabbed his arm pulling him to her. "Look at me." Fitz stared at the wall on the other side of her. "Look. At. Me." Slowly, he looked down to her. "I'm standing right here. I'm not dead or dying. I didn't leave you here alone. We have a future after this. After you're done being President we can have the dream of what we wanted."

"Tell me the rest, Livie."

"The rest?"

"You wanted to die. What did the papers say?"

"I wanted everything possible in me, donated. Let it all go to someone who needed it. I didn't want a big fuss made over me. I only wanted my body to be cremated and that would be the end of it. I didn't want a funeral or a big broadcast. Just a public announcement that Huck was going to post that I had died."

"Would you have sent him to tell me? Let me know somehow that you died?"

"You would have found out like everyone else. In the announcement that Huck would make."

"You wouldn't even let me say goodbye?"

Liv could sense the anger in his voice. "We weren't together. We said goodbye when you let me go."

"Does everything go back to that? That this is my entire fault? It's my fault you got shot and my fault that you wanted to die?"

"I'm not blaming you. There's no blame. You wanted the truth. You wanted to know. Listen to me. I'm here; I'm not going anywhere that you can't find me ever."

Fitz moved and went to the table and sat down. "What made you change your mind? Why don't you want to die anymore?"

Olivia grabbed her cane and walked over to her chair. She sat down and took his hands in hers. "I could hear you when I was in the coma. I know you told me not to die. That you wouldn't let me die. I could hear every word you told me, I just couldn't respond. When I heard you say that you still love me, I knew I had to fight to come back. I fought my hardest to get back to you sooner. But I pushed myself the hardest when I heard you and James arguing about killing me."

"Can we please use a different term? It makes us sound like murderers."

"Fine, I head the two of you talking about 'pulling the plug' while I was in the coma. I heard your voice and knew everything was going to be okay if I could wake up. And then when I heard you say you were going to divorce her I was trying to wake up and tell you not to. But Mellie came in and said that she had the baby and your divorce was finalized soon, I actually was able to wake up. I came back to you, to us and I'm staying. You're going to have to kill me to get rid of me."

"Then you are stuck with me for life."


End file.
